


Knocking On Heavens Door

by cyncyn1110



Series: And the Song Goes on [28]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bob Dylan - Freeform, Dark Side of the Moon, I Shall Believe, Knocking on Heavens Door, M/M, S5 E16, Samulet, Wincest - Freeform, Young Sam, sheryl crow - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 18:14:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7812103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyncyn1110/pseuds/cyncyn1110
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean doesn't understand why all of Sam's memories end up with him being left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knocking On Heavens Door

**Author's Note:**

> This fic references part 11 of this series I Shall Believe where Dean takes Sam on their first official date after shutting him out due to John's Death. 
> 
>  
> 
> For DarkSun. Hope I made you proud!

Dean felt them before he heard them. He slipped the hand that wasn't spread across Sam's stomach further under his pillow but his colt was gone. 

"Lookin' for this?" Dean turned onto his back to see not one but two assholes standing a few feet from the bed with ski masks on. 

"Morning" He knew he had to play it cool but asshole number two had his gun on Sam who was now sitting up. 

"Shut up, hands where I can see em. Jesus, I'd heard you two were a little too close for normal brothers but who coulda guessed you were playing house. Go on and get in your own damn bed and move slowly." Asshole number two followed Sam closely with the end of his shotgun until he was sitting in his own bed. 

Dean had to grind his teeth against the urge to jump out of the bed and strangle the idiot with the bare hands he was being forced to raise as he sat up. 

"Wait a minute, is that you Roy? It is, isn't it. Which makes you Walt. Hiya Walt." 

He watched Roy and Walt meet eyes, not missing the way Roy shifted from foot to foot. 

"Don't matter" Walt muttered as he pulled his mask off. After one last glance for reassurance at Walt, Roy pulled his mask of as well.

"Well, is it just me or do you two seem a tad upset?" Dean tried to shift a little but the way Roy's gun shook made him think twice. 

"You think you can flip the switch on the apocalypse and just walk away, Sam?" Dean really hated Walt.

The small "oof" of air Sam let out sounded as if he'd been punched in the gut.

"Who told you that?" God his voice sounded so small, it made Dean want to tear their throats out for making him sound that way. 

"We ain't the only hunters after you. See you in the next life." The vitriol in Walt's voice made Dean wince internally, the click of the shotgun being pumped made him want to vomit.

"Hear me out, I can explain, okay? Please.." Dean's heart sunk at his baby brothers pleading. Walt only waited a second. 

Everything slowed down when the buckshot left the chamber. He couldn't move, he wanted to jump in front of that bullet but all he could do was watch it travel, his arms and legs refused to function until Sam was flung back on the mattress. He was finally released from whatever the hell was holding him still and he tried to get to Sam but Roy stopped him. 

"Stay the hell down." Dean was gonna kill him, he would find him and kill him.

Walt trained his gun on Dean and egged Roy on. "Shoot 'im."

Roy shifted from foot to foot again. "Killing Sam was right but Dean...."

Walt huffed in annoyance while Dean watched his brother bleed out. "He made us, and we just snuffed his brother, you idiot. You want to spend the rest of your life knowing Dean Winchester's on your ass? Cause I don't, shoot 'im"

Dean turned his eyes away from his lovers lifeless body. "Go ahead, Roy, do it. But I'm gonna warn you, when I come back I'm gonna be pissed." Dean let his lip curl up in a snarl. "C'mon! Let's get this show on the road!"

Roy watched Dean with worried eyes. "C'mon already!" Walt yelled impatiently. When Roy still didn't fire Walt stepped forward and did it himself.

\-----------------------------------

He woke up with the smell of leather in his nose and Bob Dylan in his ears. Not only the familiar smell of Baby's leather seats but the worn jacket his dad had passed onto him years before he died. Years before they both died. 

Dean got out of the car to look around and startled a little when the trunk slammed closed behind him. 

"Sammy?" Dean shook his head trying to shake the vision before him. Sam hadn't been this small in years. His hair was shorter but still pretty long and in the back of his head he could hear their dad arguing with his youngest to just cut it off. Dean lifted his hand to touch it but Sam walked off leaving his hand gripping air. Dean turned to find his reflection in the moonlight lit glass of the car. He looked the same. Time hadn't regressed for him. He lifted the leather jacket and recognized the clothes underneath it as stuff he wore currently. 

"Come on, let's go." Snapped out of his observations, Dean followed Sam like he always did muttering to himself about the weird dream.

"Got your lighter?" Sammy took a couple of fireworks from the crate now sitting at his feet while Dean checked his pockets. 

His eyes lit up when his fingers brushed cold metal. He pulled the relic out and turned it in his hands. "Whoa, I haven't seen this in years." 

"Fire 'em up." Dean lit Sam's firework then his own and watched as they painted the sky with sparks. 

"I remember this! Its Fourth of July, 1996." Dean expected Sam to respond but he was just watching the show. When he did turn to speak to Dean it was as if the whole thing was scripted. It never veered from how Dean remembered it.

"Dad would never let us do anything like this. Thanks Dean. This is great." Little Sam threw his arms around Dean, who squeezed his eyes shut for a second at how real it all felt. The way Sam looked at him made Dean's heart swell with pride at making his little brother happy. He wanted so badly to protect this version of Sam. To hide him away so he could never hurt. 

Just as suddenly as they were full, his arms were empty and Sam took Dean's lighter, running off to light the entire crate. Dean could still hear "Knocking On Heaven's" door coming from the Impala's speakers even though it should've long been over. 

"Fire in the hole!" When the sky was filled with sparks Sam moved beneath them and Dean watched him happily, he got lost for a second until one of the larger fireworks went off and he flashed back on older Sam being shot in the bed next to his. Dean dropped to his knees and the next firework brought on the flashback of himself being shot. When the image was gone so we're the fireworks and Sam. 

\-----------------------------------

Dean wrapped his hand around the back of Sam's neck and pulled him close as the family behind them continued with their thanksgiving dinner as if Sam was still sitting next to their predator of a daughter. 

"Hey." He kissed Sam's soft lips and wrapped his arms around him tightly. 

"Dean, what are you doing in this part of my dream?" Sam was as in the dark as Dean had been. 

He moved his hands to either side of Sam's face. "No baby, just try to remember. We were in that motel, we drank our weight in beer before we fell asleep. I was holding you and then..."

"They shot me." His face falling as it flooded back broke a damn inside of Dean. 

"They shot me too." The look of pain that crossed Sam's face had Dean wrapping him up tighter. "Hey, we're gonna get back and when we do I'm gonna find em Sammy."

"Get back from where? Where are we." Sam looked around as if the walls held the answer. 

"Heaven." Dean ran his hands through Sam's hair relishing the smell of his shampoo. 

"Heaven? How are we in heaven?" Sam pulled away and searched Dean's face. 

"All that clean living I guess." When Sam pulled away from his arms he let him. Feeling the loss for the third time in one night. 

"No, no. Okay you, I get, sure. But me? Maybe you haven't noticed but I've done a few things." Sam couldn't hide the shame in his eyes. 

"You thought you were doing the right thing." He stepped back into Sam's space as if it would force the guilt out of his partner. 

"Last I checked it wasn't the road to Heaven paved with good intentions." Sam scrubbed a hand over his face making him look like the 13 year old Dean had just lit fireworks with. 

"Yeah if this is the sky mall it sucks. I mean where's the pie and naked Sam? C'mon a guy has needs."

"You know", Sam said while watching his eleven year old date converse with her family, "when you bite the dust they say your life flashes before your eyes."

"Your point?" Dean asked.

"This house, it's one of my memories." 

"When I woke up, I woke up in one of my memories. The Fourth of July we burned down that field." He wanted to kiss the fond smile that Sam was wearing as he remembered. 

"Maybe that's what Heaven is, a place where you live your greatest hits." 

Dean stepped away from Sam and gave him a strange look. "Wait, so....playing footsie with brace face in there? Then that's a trophy moment for you?"

"Dean, I was eleven years old. This was my first Thanksgiving."

"What are you talking about? We had Thanksgiving every year." Dean could feel himself begin to get defensive. 

"We had a bucket of extra crispy and Dad passed out on the couch." When Dean huffed out loud, Sam reached his hand up and cupped his face. "No but this isn't the whole thing yet. It was my first Thanksgiving dinner, afterwards you picked me up because Dad was on a hunt remember?" He waited for Dean to nod before he continued. "We walked back but stopped at that convenience store on the way and you bought me candy. When we got back to that shack we were staying at, you let me watch the Charlie Brown special, I fell asleep with my head on your lap and you let me, kept playing with my hair. That's part of my best of." 

Dean let himself be pulled closer to Sam. "Oh" he murmured. Just as he was tipping his head up to kiss Sam the entire house began to shake. 

\-----------------------------------

Dean hated the way Sam had been looking at him since they were in Dean's memory of Mary. It was sadness mixed with understanding and pity. Now as he was watching Sam pet the dog he adopted after running away from Dean as a teenager he could feel the anger that he'd kept simmering begin to bubble. 

"You don't remember do you? You ran away on my watch. I looked everywhere for you. I thought you were dead. And when Dad came home...." He couldn't stand the feelings clawing their way back from where he'd buried them deep down. 

"Dean, look I'm sorry. I never thought of it that way." Sam reached his hand out but Dean stepped out of reach and refused to make eye contact. 

"Forget it" he sniffed "let's roll".

He walked through the door into the cool night air without paying attention to where he was. When he finally looked up Dean saw an old house with a wrap around porch. He heard Sam stop just behind him.

"What memory is this?" Dean wasn't not sure if it was his or Sam's

"No idea." The way he said it triggered something. "Alright, c'mon Dean.... Road. God."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute. This?" The stabbing pain Dean felt in his chest made him stop to take a breath. "This is the night you ditched us for Stanford, isn't it? This is your idea of Heaven? Wow." He lifted his hand to rub at the aching in his chest. "This was one of the worst nights of my life." 

"Dean, I can't control this stuff."

"Seriously, Sam? I mean this is a happy memory for you?"

"I don't know... I mean I finally got away from Dad." Sam at least had the decency to look ashamed. 

"Yeah he wasn't the only one you got away from."

"Dean, I'm sorry, I just uh..."

"I know", Dean sneered "you didn't think of it like that." 

"Dean!" 

"C'mon! Your Heaven is somebody else's Thanksgiving where I'm given a cameo. It's bailing on your family.... on me." He could hear the way his voice shook but fuck it he was hurting. 

"Man, I never got the crusts cut off my PB&J. I just don't look at family the way you do." Dean was really getting tired of seeing pain flash across Sam's face. 

"Yeah, but I'm your family." He spoke quietly but Sam heard him anyway.

"I know." The way Sam said it was as if it were a bad thing. 

"I mean, we're supposed to be a team. It's supposed to be you and me against the world right?"

"Dean, it is!" Sam stepped forward and reached his hand out to touch Dean's face.

"Is it?" Dean stepped back but Sam pressed forward again. 

"You know what happened right before Flagstaff? You forgot that we had plans, you went out with that girl instead and I waited for you for hours. When you came home not only were you drunk but you smelled like her. I already loved you then. I knew I was wrong and disgusting and you didn't deserve that. I let you fall asleep and think nothing was wrong. God Dean I thought I would die, it hurt so bad. I convinced myself to just run and leave you in peace, make Dad happy that I was out of the way." 

Dean watched a tear collect in the corner of Sam's eye. "Sammy I..."

"When you found me you hugged me so hard that I knew Dean, I knew you loved me even if it was just like a brother. I knew you believed your life was better with me in it, so I decided to keep all that crap hidden away because at least you loved me in some way. Dad was even nice to me for a few days." Sam's laugh was watery.

"Yeah, he let you ride shotgun for the first time. Grant it I couldn't sit down properly being that he tanned my hide, so I was spread out in the back seat."

"I'm sorry..." Sam looked back up at the house where he had laid everything out for Dean before he left for Stanford. "This night.... It wasn't exactly the best for me either."

"Than why..?" 

"Because at least you knew. It was a weight off of my chest. I was leaving Dad behind and you had made your decision, but at least you knew. It broke me, when you walked out, it shattered me to pieces. But knowing that you didn't feel the same for me freed me to leave. I figured you'd be happier without me pining after you all the time. I even convinced myself that I'd get over you. It's not happy because I left you, it's happy because I was giving you your freedom too. From me." 

"I'm sorry, Sammy. Leaving you in that kitchen was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I broke too. Just thought I was doing the right thing. Thought it was my  
fault you felt the way I felt."

"It's ok, let's just keep going." 

Sam continued to follow the road and Dean fell instep beside him. Neither commented on the way they were both sniffling, they were both just lost in their thoughts. It wasn't until their feet hit dirt that they realized they were walking on an unpaved road. There were trees lining the path as they walked but neither could place the memory. 

Not until they reached the clearing and saw Bobby's truck sitting in the middle. 

Dean looked at Sam's face and knew he was remembering it too. This was a shared memory. The night that Dean took Sam on their first date was undoubtedly a happy memory for both of them. 

Dean reached his hand out and laced it with Sam's as they approached the truck. The blanket that they'd made love on was spread out in the bed of the truck and their unfinished meals sat in styrofoam containers to the side. The radio inside suddenly crackled to life and that familiar Sheryl Crow song floated out to greet them. 

Without thinking about how they had to keep moving Dean tugged Sam against him and began swaying to the music. At first Sam resisted but he finally let himself melt into Dean. 

"I just love you so much, baby boy. All that stuff that happened.... It made us this, so if those memories are good to you, then I get it." 

"I love you too, Dean. I just wish we had gotten our shit together a lot sooner."

"Me too, sweetheart. Me too."

\-----------------------------------

Sam saw the way Dean was watching Cas give up on everything and he knew his brother was giving up a little too. He could see it in the  
way Dean listened to the Angel talk to God. 

There was a time, after Castiel raised Dean that Sam, although grateful, was threatened by him. He knew that Cas and Dean had a special bond because of it. The handprint he had left on Dean didn't help matters. The first night the brothers had been intimate, after Dean was raised, Sam had avoided touching it. It felt like Cas had branded Dean as his and really with a man as amazing as Dean who could blame the Angel if he wanted him for himself. How could Sam compete with that. But one late night while they were laying in bed, before Sam's betrayal had risen it's ugly head, Dean had made it clear that there was nothing there, so Sam tried to let it go. 

After Sam raised Lucifer then split with Dean he often wondered if the older Winchester would turn to the Angel, but Dean came back to him. So he relaxed a little. Began to build his own relationship with Cas. Now as he watched Dean drop the amulet in the trash can of the motel room that they had both been killed in, he felt it again. That small ugly niggling feeling that their bond was strong enough to make Dean give up hope. Although he knew he meant more to Dean than a bronze charm on a string, he couldn't help but feel that Dean was letting Castiel take a piece of them and make it mean nothing. His own bond to Dean, as powerful as it was , wasn't strong enough to make Dean fish it out. So Sam did. He buried it in his duffel and shut the door behind him.


End file.
